


His Second Snap

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hospitals, MCU universe no MCU characters, Reunions, the snappening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-29 00:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21146015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: JD is undusted. Dr. Cox might actually be in a place to appreciate it except it turns out a hospital is a pretty terrible place to ride out this so-called miracle. [MCU AU, Post-Snap, only Scrubs characters]





	His Second Snap

**Author's Note:**

> Me: The Snap in the MCU is the stupidest plot device I've ever seen.  
Also Me: Writes second fic in a row exclusively about the snap.
> 
> I haven't written Scrubs in pushing a decade, but I'm in a rewatch and I love them. Enjoy.

When that god-awful troupe of glorified war-criminals in spandex finally get off their asses and undo the mess they created, they do it in the w_o_rst possible way. End of a double shift, right after I’ve called time of death for a patient who would have made it if the piss-poor excuse for a resident did his job. I’m trying to make my way out the door so I can finally go home and see my kids when I round the corner and run headlong into a familiar pair of scrubs occupied by a ghost.

And isn’t that a kick in the face? Because I haven’t seen one of those since Ben died, and even if I had picked today of all days to crack, it would have been _Jack _not… “Newbie?”

John Dorian rubs at what is probably a forming bruise on his forearms, letting out a hissing, “Owwww. Dr. Cox! I wasn’t even standing that close.”

“You weren’t standing there,” I say, trying to pick my jaw off the floor. “At all.”

JD looks up from his barely-there boo-boo and then does a double take when he catches sight of my face. “Dr. Cox,” he says, brow creasing. “When did you start going gray?”

I swipe a thumb to my nose and cross my arms. The old habits swimming back to the forefront. I have to swallow back the habitual _Careful, Susana_ because—and here’s the real kicker—something a good deal sappier might fall out instead.

I pry my arms out of their stances and stagger two frantic steps forward, because I _have to know_. JD gives a yelp of surprise as I approach, his hands up defensively, but I feel the minute he decodes the action and sags into the hug.

Christ, Newbie’s _here_. Five years ago I had his ashes all over my lab coat and now he’s _here_.

“This is nice,” JD says. “I’ve had dreams like this before.”

His breath is warm against my shoulder. I fight the urge to feel for his pulse. Because, while I will n_e_ver admit it out loud, I have also had dreams like this. The world slotting back into the same place it was five years ago when I may have actually been—get this—_happy_.

But god forbid that kind of sentiment ever lasts more than a couple seconds because before I can recover enough to remember my rule about not hugging clingy man-children there’s a chorus of pages. Even Dr. Back-From-Dust looks down to his, which is funny because I could have sworn this place decided not to pay for service for people who were, by all accounts _dead._

It’s an all-points bulletin. Mass causality incident, everyone on-call reporting if physically possible. Which is funny because if my eyes are still working, I spot Carla and Gandhi off in the distance. Not to mention Nervous Guy spinning in the hallway like he’d lost his way to the morgue, which is ironic considering _he’s supposed to be in the morgue. _

In a lot of ways the carnage is worse than Dust Day. Because good old D-Day halved my immediate caseload. We had a massive influx of car-wrecks, sure, but those kind of wrecks are a lot more survivable in encased in metal than they are careening into the poor saps who reappeared in the middle of roads. The day’s a parade of bizarre and deathly acute trauma on top of a sudden encore of the worst ICU patients of the last decade, all of them trying to die on me. Which, granted, isn’t all that different than normal. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with those sorts of patients if you have access to the correct medical information about diagnoses, treatments and just how to keep them _alive_.

We lose a _lot_ of patients. A lot. The only reason I don’t throw myself out a window in despair—or at very least throw one of those piss-poor excuses for interns whose name I didn’t remember even before they disintegrated out the window—is that I keep catching glimpse of JD, or Carla, or Dr. Wen dashing between patient rooms. And damned if I don’t want to call Barbie and get a hard confirmation that I haven’t, in fact, lost it.

And if I’m yearning for Dr. Barbie’s expert advice, well I’m already two steps past losing it. I haven’t slept in more than a day. My hands are shaking from what has to be my twentieth cup of coffee and I might actually become a hazard to myself and other if I have to intubate one more patient in the middle of a _hallway_.

By hour twenty I’m beyond cooked, but the barrage of trauma patients has, for the most part, stabilized or died. It’s by far the single day record for non-dusting deaths at Sacred Heart and I haven’t even managed to make a call to Jordan to see if things are okay back at home.

To see if Jack…

When the next shift of doctors cycle through, I let myself off the hook. I’m no good to anyone if I stay, but I know I’ll have to be back soon. On my way out, I catch sight of JD on one of the benches, his hands in his head. There’s a smear of blood near the collar of his scrubs and his street clothes had been tossed from his locker about the same time they reassigned all the lockers.

“You okay there, Newbie?”

“Been trying to get in touch with Kim,” JD says, staring at his phone. “Only apparently you don’t get service when you don’t pay for five years and I have no idea where Sammy is and I definitely don’t have a car or even a place to live…”

“Easy there, Tiffany. Now’s not the time for a breakdown.”

“Perry I’ve been _dead _for five years. Along with at least half the hospital. Someone just undid an apocalypse level event and I spent all day dealing with people who got run-over because they reappeared in traffic. As far as I remember, yesterday, everything was _fine_.”

I decided to completely ignore the use of my first name, which is probably what tips his jittery confusion into near panic. “I’m assuming Turk and Carla skipped off to find Barbie and their little girl, leaving you, of course, here for me. So, chop, chop Newbie. You’re riding with me today.”

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t move, so I grab him by the back of his scrubs, haul him up and push him out the door, steering him to the car. I’ve got the minivan today, and that alone has JD doing a wildly over-exaggerated double takes. “Can it.”

“I didn’t say anything!” JD protests.

“You try carting a pair of kids in a Porsche and tell me how long you last.”

“Fatherhood suits you,” JD says as he climbs up and into the passenger’s side of the van, voice dripping with petulant snark.

It’s so good to hear it again, that I don’t retaliate. “You're damn right it does.”

* * *

Road closures delay us longer than I would have liked. It’s hard not to let my attention stray to the carnage on the highways. The hospital will be there when we get back. The sun’s long past set by the time we roll into the house and a knot of tension I didn’t know was there uncoils when I see Jordan’s car, blessedly undented, in the driveway.

“Come on, Newbie.” I call, stepping out of the car without checking to make sure he’s behind me.

No, I wait until I get to the door to check. Turns out what the last five years really gave me was crippling separation anxiety. I have to keep reminding myself that people don’t just disappear.

Except of course, for that one time where everybody did.

But JD is still here, hovering nervously by my shoulder. It’s disconcerting to see him after years of making that same glance only to find an empty space. I shake myself, take a deep breath and push open the door.

I get the same greeting I get almost every day after work. A stampede of tiny feet that sound like they should belong to something much larger than one of my kids. I bend down and sweep lady-clomps-a-lot into my arms and swing her onto my shoulder. “Jenny D! How’s my little girl today?”

“Big girl!” she protests, shrieking into my ears.

“Yes,” I agree. “You’re growing into your cloven hooves just like your mother.”

I set Jenny down and she beams up at me for a second before catching sight of Newbie hovering in the doorway. “Who’s your friend?”

“DJ?” Jordan says and my heart tries to quit on me because she’s holding a very familiar little boy.

“It’s JD,” Newbie corrects.

“That’s my name!” Jenny crows.

I barely notice the exchange. “Hey, Jackster.”

Jordan hands him off and Jack tucks his head into my shoulder. And this, right here, _this_ is the first time today’s mess has felt like a miracle.

“You call your daughter JD?” JD asks. He sounds choked up.

“Well you’re certainly not using the name, Priscilla,” I retort.

“Daddy!” Jenny shouts, tugging the bottom of my shirt. “Daddy! Sammy and me get to have a little brother now!”

I can almost hear JD’s eyes widen and then Thing Number Two makes his presence known. “Who’s it?”

Sam, despite five years in the Sullivan-Cox household is a Dorian to the core. He’s pale and dark-haired, constantly tripping over his own feet when he drifts into his daydreams. Sharper-tongued than his father, but JD always had a bit of a bite to him, too. He wouldn’t have lasted as long with me if he didn’t. Sam’s seen pictures of his Dad before. I’d had to scavenge through Gandhi's things to get them, but it must be completely different to see someone in person.

“You know how we all thought Jack was gone before today?” Jordan says, crouching next to Sam. “Well, we thought the same thing about your Dad. But apparently not.”

JD staggers two steps forward and then falls to his knees in front of the kid.

“Hey, Sammy,” he says.

“You’re my Daddy?” Sam does not rush forward to hug him. He’s gone shy, hiding his head behind Jordan’s leg. 

“Yeah,” JD says. And I would tease him for the tears in his voice, but holding Jack, I’m pretty damn close myself.

“No!” Jenny shouts and walks over and kicks JD hard.

JD yelps and falls back onto his heels. Jordan slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

“He’s _my brother_,” Jenny says. “You can’t take him.”

“Owww!” JD whines.

Sam pushes Jenny. “Hey! Don’t hit my Daddy!”

Jenny pushes him back.

I put Jack down so I can give a sharp whistle. And yeah, JD snaps to attention with the rest of the kids. I hate a little bit, that Jenny’s not wrong. Kim had died in a car crash five years ago, one of the many consequences of dusting day. Carla and Turk were both dust to dust. Barbie wound up with Izzy, but she wasn’t exactly prepared to be suddenly a parent of _two. _

Meanwhile, Jordan and I…

I look down at Jack. The only fight we’d had in the past five years that came close to torching us in the same way the divorce did, was when she’d called Sam a replacement for Jack. But that was never true, could never be true.

“We do not push people in this family. And we _certainly_ do not do it in plain view. JD--” My daughter looks up at me and I have to clarify. “Newly undusty JD will be staying with us.”

“I couldn’t,” JD starts.

“Considering we have a spare room and, for the last five years, _your son_. Yes, you definitely can. Unless you’re planning on taking Sam and sleeping under a bridge.”

And _that_ makes Jenny’s eyes well up. 

“No one’s sleeping under a bridge,” Jordan cuts in. “DJ and Sam are staying.”

* * *

JD and I inhale the last few slices of pizza Jordan ordered and I find him a spare set of sweats. He watches almost silently as Jordan and I put the kids down for the night and seems unsurprised when I hand him a beer. Jordan ditches us for her beauty rest, but not before putting a hand to my chest and saying, “We’re keeping Sam even if we have to keep DJ, too.”

Which, in Jordan speak, is permission.

“You took Sam in…” JD says. He’s peeling the label off of a beer. “I didn’t think.”

“Did you ever think I wouldn’t? I know you would have preferred Gandhi, but that wasn’t exactly an option.” I hesitate, swirling the scotch around in my glass. “You know at this point, he’s my kid, too, right?”

JD opens his mouth and then closes it again. “I owe you a lot.”

“No. You don’t owe me a_ny_thing. I love that kid. Like I love Jenny. Like I love Jack.” _Like I love you_, I don’t add, but he’s got to have made that inference by now. Newbie’s one of about four people in my life who is passably fluent in Perry Cox. We’ve been calling Jenny _JD _on and off for the past three years. I took in his kid with barely a second thought. For God’s sake my first instinct seeing him again was a big old _hug_. There’s no way he doesn’t know. “Sammy’s staying here. And so are you. That’s non-negotiable, Newbie.”

JD lets out a small huff of laughter. “Thanks, Dr. Cox.”

“I’m glad you’re not dead. If today’s any indication, we need all the halfway decent doctors we can get.” I finish off the last of my scotch and let one last truth slip out. “And I missed you, kid. I really did.”


End file.
